Alistair Darling appealed for negotiations to resolve the Network Rail dispute over pay, pensions and concessionary travel after the industry's biggest trade union announced members had voted in favour of industrial action.
Stoppages by the RMT's signallers, station staff and maintenance workers would severely disrupt local and long-distance trains on the 11,000-mile network and lead to widespread cancellations.
The left-led union's executive is to meet next week to discuss potential strike dates. Its general secretary, Bob Crow, said it will seek to coordinate any action with London Underground workers, raising the prospect of commuter chaos in the capital.
Mr Darling, who holds the purse strings of the publicly funded Network Rail, called on the two sides to reopen talks to avert stoppages.
"At a time when improvements are starting to come through on the railway and passenger confidence is improving, the last thing passengers need is a strike," said the cabinet minister.
"It would cause massive inconvenience and needless disruption to the travelling public. Every industrial dispute is settled by talks and that is what should happen now."
The RMT yesterday wrote to Network Rail seeking a meeting and the company, responsible for the industry's infrastructure since replacing Railtrack, indicated it would agree to talks.
Five separate ballots across Network Rail produced a combined three-to-two majority on a high 68% turnout among the 7,734 employees covered in favour of industrial action.
The narrowness of the majority - 2,947 or 58% in favour and 2,246, 42%, against - led Network Rail to claim the union leadership had no mandate for action because only 38% of the RMT membership voted for action.
But Mr Crow said it was a clear rejection of the company's plans. Strikes of between six hours and three days have been threatened, to cause what Mr Crow recently described as "maximum disruption" to services.
The RMT leader said: "Our intention is to put maximum pressure on the company to get the company back round the negotiating table.
"Despite a venomous and misleading propaganda campaign by Network Rail, our members have voted for action to defend their pension rights, to end two-tier working conditions and justice for pay.
"Network Rail's directors are happy enough to hand themselves telephone-number bonuses, but when it comes to the workforce it is a completely different story."
The union chief ruled out walkouts over the Bank Holiday weekend or around the June 6 D-Day commemorations. Coordinated action with the underground is dependent on tube workers voting to strike in a separate dispute.
Network Rail has offered a 3% pay rise or a higher two-year deal and is resisting union demands to guarantee earnings-linked pensions to new recruits and extend free and cheap travel to all employees.
The company said managers would be redeployed in an effort to keep some trains moving during strikes. Safety priorities, however, could make it difficult to operate high-speed routes.
A pay strike by signal workers in 1994, shortly after rail privatisation, repeatedly halted trains.
John Armitt, Network Rail chief executive, said: "This is a pointless and unnecessary dispute. Despite our best efforts to communicate the true facts to our employees, the RMT's campaign of misinformation has proved successful.
"Contingency planning is under way, in close cooperation with the train operators, to lessen the impact of a potential strike to rail passengers involving special timetables and retraining of employees with signalling experience."
